Elevated window and storm shutters are known to have built in shutter cranks that require long extended hand crank arms, that require a user to grip the shutter crank, and manually rotate the long extended arm to open and close the shutters. The manual action can be both tedious, time consuming, and difficult to most users. As a result, often the hand crank arms are not used, and the shutters remain in either constantly open or closed positions.
Various tools have been proposed over the years that can be attached to and be used for extending the reach of power tools. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,765,362 to Berry; U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,813 to Arneson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,357,845 to Cornia; Des. 358,082 to Trezza; U.S. Pat. No. 6,171,033 to Wrobel; U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,885 to Isaksson; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,558,089 to DeBlasio. However, none of these devices has been described for use with crank arms on shutters and windows. In addition, these patented devices would not be able to be used with T-shaped control knobs used on elevated shutter type windows.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,489 to Krauthamer describes a “window handle turning accessory”, title, that can attach to a power drill. However, this device requires an enlarged cylindrical housing with a rear conical section that is separately attached to a smaller diameter shank, the latter of which is attached to the power tool, FIGS. 2, 3, 4. The accessory has one long side slit 30/31 FIG. 2, or two opposite long side slits 52, 54 for fitting over, a round handle knob, FIG. 3 or over a double wing(butterfly) knob, FIG. 4. Other enlarged heads in the remaining figures having cylindrical openings that fit over cylindrical splined portions of window handles, FIGS. 5–9.
The Krauthamer accessories would require the user loosely fit the enlarged heads of the accessory over the knobs without locking the knob to the accessory. Thus, the Krauthamer accessories can potentially disengage and fall off the knobs during use.
Furthermore, the Krauthamer accessories would not be practical or easy or inexpensive to manufacture due to the enlarged head which must require separate machining and molding before it can be attached to a shank for use with a power tool.
In addition, the Krauthamer accessories would not be able to be used with cross positioned and T-shaped pins that are used on cranks of elevated window shutters since their heads would not fit thereon, and would not be able to lock onto T-shaped pins on the cranks of elevated window shutters. Furthermore, the short shank lengths in the Krauthamer accessories are not long enough to be used with elevated shutter windows.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the problems with the prior art.